KARACHI, Nov 30: In order to meet the city’s water needs in the future, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) has started preparing the PC-I of the K-IV project through which the city will get an additional supply of 600mgd in four different phases.
The project’s first phase of 130mgd of water is likely to be completed by 2011 while the remaining three phases, each to consume three years, will be finished by 2020.
However, it all depends on the federal government which has to grant the right of the additional 1,200 cusecs (600mgd) of water for the city from the Indus River.
The city’s quota of drawing 1,200 cusecs of water from the Indus River which was last fixed during the late Gen Zia’s era had already been consumed with the commissioning of 100mgd K-III project last year and as long as the federal government did not accord its approval to the city’s demand of drawing an additional 1,200 cusecs of water from the Indus source, the KWSB’s efforts of initiating another project (K-IV) would bear no fruit.
Well-placed sources told Dawn that the federal government, while refusing to allocate a separate quota of additional 1,200 cusecs for Karachi from the Indus source, has asked the KWSB to approach the Sindh government for getting its required quota approved from its share from the Indus River.
The sources claimed that the Sindh government, which had already given conceptual approval to the K-IV Project Study, would have no objection to allowing the KWSB to draw an additional 1,200 cusecs of water from its own quota from the Indus source.
The sources said that though the final approval to the city government’s request of granting an additional water right of 1,200 cusecs from the Indus River for the city would be given by the federal government, all-out efforts were being made to convince the provincial government to give its consent to the KWSB for drawing an additional 600 cusecs of water from the Indus source from its share as the entire quota of 1,200 cusecs would be drawn in four phases and that too up to 2020.
An official said on the condition of anonymity that the K-IV project’s PC-I was currently in the planning stage and once it was prepared it would be presented to the federal government to seek approval from the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (ECNEC).
He said that after the approval by the ECNEC, efforts would be made to acquire land for its corridor and shortly afterwards, the first phase of the project would be initiated and on its completion in 2011, the city would start getting an additional 130mgd.
At the completion of the project, the city’s present water supply capacity will be increased from 720mgd to 1,260mgd by 2020.
Elaborating, he said that the K-IV project also proposed construction of three filtration plants (720mgd in total; 240mgd x 3 plants) in Gadap Town in 2010, 2015 and 2020, respectively.